A bunch of inane cynical rants on gaming and other entertainment by a stereotypical British person, who is so self conscious he has to hide under a pseudonymn called John Smith (or shortened to Jonith.) Also has a fondness for tea.

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Hello all and welcome to my blog (this is one of the nicest things you will ever here me say), in which i will whine and be cynical about different things until you'll either want to put a bullet through your head or drown yourself in your own piss.

I am now Jooseman, the Artist formerly known as Jonith, and I have stopped using the name Jonith regularly (however do still have many accoun named Jonith, so go by both) as it got confusing, So call me Jooseman or Joose or whatever. Call me TwatBucket if it pleases you.

Our Youtube ChannelRants up on this blog on Friday if I've done one, just too add a little bit of schedule here.

Monday, 2 July 2012

Rome 2 Total War Announcement

(Semi Serious post, not rant, which I wrote to post on
Shaboozey.com thread and decided to adjust and post here as well)

Today after finishing playing Smite, I was told possibly the
greatest news I have ever heard, they had just announced that a Snowman was in
fact the ruler of the New World Order. I mean that Rome 2 was announced by
Creative Assembly to an applause so big by me, it was almost certainly not
compensate for something else. Seriously guys, ROME 2!!

Rome Total War is possibly one of my favourite games ever
created by anybody, which shows why it was in my list of Top 10 games ever. It
is possible the most game changing of the Total War series, being the first to
move away from the Sprites of the original Shogun and Medieval games, and
instead bringing the series into glorious and epic, huge 3D Battles which made
the series popular, and is one of the many reasons that this game is probably
the most requested game to be "re-made" again for the Total War
series. It'd be more surprised that idiots used the internet than this game
being created.So here are some of the new features in this game:

Factions

Yes Shogun 2 had a lot of factions, however a major
complaint, as well as with Empire, was that all the factions were essentially
the same after being spray painted in different colours of the rainbow by a
really bad artist. It gave less variety than a football team from the third Reich
game and was just boring to watch. However with Rome Total war, the variety in
the armies was much better to see, for example with the Egyptians getting
Chariots, and Carthaginians getting Elephants etc.

This looks like it is about to stay in the sequel, with
initial interviews showing that each one will have completely individual styles
to them, from the Germanic Tribes, to the Greeks, the different Roman states
and also to the Carthaginians and the Egyptians. It just makes for a much
better and more enjoyable experience for the game.

The factions also change with environment, for example
having crude barbaric cities, to the decor of Roman and Greek cities, and
finally to the bustling metropolis of Carthage, which is basically a "boss
battle" city if you are a Roman faction, being the largest and most money
earning throughout most of the game. By boss battle I'm hoping for a huge
transforming city which turns into a robot or something, think that will
happen?

AI

The main problem with all Total War games is that the AI is
god awful. They act like children being chased by rabid squirrels most of the
time, running around the battlefield like a chicken on acid, and completely
destroying any battle plan you happened to be thinking of beforehand. This was
most prominent in Empire Total War, where the characters were scared to enter
the water, presumably because they all had life threatening experiences with
puddles when they were younger.

This however, didn't stop with just Empire, with even Fall
of the Samurai having awful AI which even cheats at times on some difficulties
in order to win, which, doesn't seem to fit the spirit of a Total War game,
which is why it is now good they have,
for Rome 2, hired a large portion more staff to sort it out, as well as fixed
the separate AI's for military and diplomacy, making ir much more like how an AI in a Civ
game would act.

Scale

They have made the scale much larger, making the battles
seem much more huge with larger units which make the battles much more
detailed, as well as with a new graphical engine which means more can be done
with how the units look.

It is helped by the fact that Naval and Land battles are now
combined, being able to take place in what is the equivalent of D-Day set
during the Gladiator films. For example with the shown Battle of Carthage,
where naval vessels transport ground troops to the beach, and land them, where
the soldiers then run up to abandoned siege equipment and start to move towards
the city.All the while this is happening, other ships are firing boulders
from catapults at the City Walls in the harbour. This also makes it more
tactical for the defenders, who at same time are trying to sink the transport
ships and making it a much riskier approach for the attackers in the siege.In the campaign map, the territories have also changed, with
many being much larger now, however within that territory it would be split up
into many smaller regions . This allows for as much detail as Shogun but on a
much larger scale.

Each region would be focused on something different, for
example a rich, agricultural based capital region and the like. This is
designed to prevent people just rushing towards a capital to take a province,
and instead you can choose which thing you would want to deplete your enemy of
first by attacking that region. This is to try and prevent an endless, and
boring run of sieges, and instead produce fighting in the much more varied
looking countryside to make it less boring for everybody.

New Camera Angles

There are also a magnitude of new camera angles to show off
the scale of the battles, for one you can pull right into the heart of the
battle, viewing individual soldiers as they fight through the battlefield. You
can presumably also view them go to the toilet, which the developers would be
less eager to show off (That is a joke OK! OK!)

There is also the other new camera, which allows you to zoom
right out, so the soldiers all look like ants if you were a God who liked creating
ants and making them fight. This allows you to control much more of your men at
a time, and see what is happening in the battle much more easily, making It
easier to micromanage different units and stopping you from feeling over
burdened.

Multiplayer and Mods

So fact there has been no announcements on what to expect
from multiplayer and if it is the same as the previous game, however they have
said to expect something big on what will happen in that front which will be
announced nearer to the time.For Mods it is unknown, as in previous games they were very
mod friendly, with huge mods being made for both Rome and Medieval 2, however
recently it has been much harder to make mods for the game, which changed with
the map creator for Shogun 2. They have yet to announce if a tool like that
will be available for the game, however they have said they would do their best
to make it easy enough, even if it not as easy as the consumer would like it to
be.

Release Date

The game has a release date of around 2013 some time, which
would lead me to expect Q2 2013, however it could easily slip later into the
year, but whenever this game comes out, it could not come soon enough. This is
probably my most anticipated for next year now.

(Also, loading times, make them quicker. No matter what you
were loading it off, Shogun 2 seemed to have ridiculously long loading times
for whatever reason. Not to get into the battles or campaigns, but just to get
onto the main menu. No idea why that is so, but I'd rather be able to play the
game than have to spend a few hours banging my head against a wall in boredom.)